


Hand Picked

by romanticalgirl



Category: Life
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He still doesn't know how he knew his name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand Picked

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 4-20-09

Ted met Charlie the day Charlie got out of solitary. Charlie had been in the hole for two months and his normally pale skin was almost see-through. Ted was working the food line, dishing up fake potatoes and green beans that weren’t exactly the right shade of green. The guy next to Ted, who was scooping out meatballs, nodded as Charlie, taller than most of the rest of the prisoners and with that shock of red hair, came into view.

“Crews. Cop. Killed a fuckin’ family, man.”

Ted knew who Charlie was, what he’d done. Everyone knew. But Ted also knew that Charlie insisted he was innocent. Ted looked at him, almost missing the compartments he was supposed to be filling for the men in line ahead of Charlie. When Charlie stopped for his food, Ted nodded once and Charlie nodded back. Ted wasn’t sure what it was about Charlie that convinced him he was innocent, but he thought it was the way Charlie looked haunted. Ted had been in prison and in business long enough to know that no one capable of causing the bloodbath that the Seyboldt murder had been was capable of looking haunted by what he’d done.

“Stay away from the gravy,” Ted said quietly.

“Thanks.” Charlie smiled at him, honest appreciation in his eyes. “I don’t suppose there’s any fruit?”

“There’s something fruit-like in the pie, but I wouldn’t actually call it fruit.”

“Thanks, Ted.”

Ted nodded as Charlie walked away. It wasn’t until he was in his cot that night that he realized he’d never actually told Charlie his name.

**

The rest of the prisoners gave Charlie a wide berth, even as the whispers started circulating that Ted was in Charlie’s orbit. Ted wasn’t sure what exactly that entailed except that suddenly he had no shortage of places to sit at meal times and all the other prisoners and guards who had called him soft didn’t seem to know how to treat him anymore. Some of the defeat that bowed him dissipated, and he managed to stay out of the infirmary for two weeks at a stretch before he saw Charlie again.

“Hey, Ted.” Charlie sank down across the table from Ted, setting his tray in front of him. 

“Hey, um…Charlie.” It was almost a question and Ted did his best not to stare.

“Good?”

“What? Pardon?” Even with their short conversation history, Ted was fairly certain he had no idea what was going on.

“The food? The food’s good?”

It was Charlie’s smile that threw Ted off, unused as he was to seeing anything that resembled joy. “I’ve had better.”

Charlie laughed and everyone in the mess hall turned to look at them. Ted could feel heat burning his skin at being the center of attention, but Charlie didn’t seem to care. “But, Ted, it could be worse.”

“Yes. Yes. I guess it could.” Ted held out the small Clementine orange they’d been given “You want this?” 

“You should eat it. Everyone needs fruit. It’s good for you.”

Ted shook his head and passed it over to Charlie. “Did you know it’s Christmas?”

Charlie rolled the orange slowly, his fingers sliding it over his palm. “Is it?”

Ted nodded, watching Charlie watch the orange. “I miss Christmas.”

“The presents? The decorations? The TV specials?”

Shaking his head, Ted frowned. “The…the spirit, I guess.”

“What did you do with all the money, Ted?”

“I…” He stopped, feeling the flush heat his face. “Not the spirit?”

“You have to have that first.”

“Right.” Ted glanced at the orange. “You do want that, right?”

“Yeah.” Charlie grinned and closed his hand around it so it disappeared from view like he was some sort of magician. “Thanks, Ted.”

“Merry Christmas, Charlie.”

**

The strangest thing about money was that the more Ted got, the more he stole, the less real it felt. The numbers got bigger and so did the joke, just like it was all a game, like “Life” or “Monopoly”. Of course, it wasn’t a joke when he got caught or when he saw the victims on the news, the company belly up and their pensions gone. “I didn’t have a plan for it.”

Charlie doesn’t look away from the middle distance of blue skies and clouds stuck on the barbed wire like brambles. 

“I just thought ‘why not’ one day, and then I did. I was careful at first. You’re doing it for you, but you lie to yourself and tell yourself you’re doing something good, like you’re Robin Hood.”

“I always liked the rooster.”

“The troubadour.”

“That’s the one. Alan-A-Dale. Oh-de-lally” Charlie nodded. “Robin Hood was still a thief.”

“Yeah.” Ted shoved his hands in the pockets of is bright orange jumpsuit. “And I didn’t exactly give it to the poor. I wasn’t poor.”

“You are now.”

“I am now,” Ted sighed.

“How much do you think a year of life is worth?”

“You mean how much you can make in a year?”

“No.” Charlie turned toward Ted, his expression unreadable. “If you added it up. All the things you miss.”

“I don’t think you can.”

“They called it life. My sentence. I got life.”

Ted’s voice was quiet. “I know, Charlie.”

“But I don’t think it is.”

“Life? Because you’re innocent?”

“No. Because this isn’t living, Ted.” Charlie walked away, his long legs eating up the courtyard. Ted stared after him then turned the other direction, moving into the mass of prisoners making their slow circuit to right back where they started.

**

It was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, though not really, because Ted realized he deserved to be in prison, so it was the right place for him. He wasn’t even sure it was the wrong time, either, because any other time would have ended differently, his blood spilling across dirt brown and gray and jumpsuit orange. Instead there was blood, some of it his own and some of it Charlie’s and a lot of it Martin Andover’s. Ted watched him bleed out from the wound deep in his side, the bluish-purple richness of it different than the red he expected. 

“Did I just kill that guy?”

“No, Ted.” Charlie’s touch was gentle, guiding Ted away from the body, away from the mass of other prisoners being held back by the guards. The doctor and several guards surrounded the body - Martin - but made room for Charlie and Ted. 

“But he’s dead.”

“Yes.”

“He was trying to kill me.”

“It certainly looks that way.”

“That’s Martin Andover, Charlie.”

Charlie glanced back over his shoulder at the body. His jumpsuit had nothing but a number, just like all the rest of them. “You know him?”

“I know his name. He said his name right when he tried to stab me. I think he stabbed me, Charlie.”

“Yeah, he did. It’s okay, Ted.” Charlie’s hand pressed to the small of Ted’s back, keeping him moving forward, keeping him from looking back. “Who’s Martin Andover?”

“He’s a guy whose money I stole. Forty years with the company and because of me there was no pension. The company folded and he had nothing to show for it, and he’s too old to get work. He robbed a bank because of me, Charlie.”

Charlie shook his head. “He robbed a bank, Ted.”

“Because of what I did.” He refused to let Charlie argue the point, shaking his head as they were escorted to the infirmary by two quiet guards, both of them looking warily over their shoulders at Charlie. “He robbed a bank and he accidentally killed somebody and he has four grandchildren and now he’s…” Ted looked back over his shoulder. “It was because of me, Charlie.”

“He meant to hurt you, Ted. That wasn’t an accident.” Charlie moved past the guard into the building. “You’re paying the price for your crime, Ted. He doesn’t get to exact his own.”

“Don’t you want revenge though, Charlie? Against the guys that put you here? Against the real killer?”

“I don’t want revenge, Ted. I’m paying the price for a crime I didn’t commit. I’m paying the price for them. I want them to pay it.” He settled onto one of the beds in the infirmary, the bright orange of their jumpsuits stark against the white sheets, the white walls, the white room. “The bleeding’s stopped.”

“What bleeding? Am I bleeding?” Ted looked down then felt his forehead, the swollen knot crusted with dried blood. “Oh.” 

“Here.” Charlie touched Ted’s shoulder and Ted looked down, surprised to find the cloth torn and red. “But it’s stopped.”

Ted’s gaze shifted from his shoulder to Charlie’s hand and the dark red staining his fingers, in the sides of his nails. “Are you bleeding, Charlie?”

Charlie looked at his hand and swayed forward slightly before laying down on the bed. “Huh.”

**

Ted didn’t believe in conspiracy theories. He didn’t believe in aliens or fake moon landings. He believed things were what they appeared to be, because it was easier that way. Charlie made it clear that things weren’t always what they seemed. When Charlie told him the truth about the Seyboldt murders, Ted believed him, which necessitated believing that someone deliberately framed Charlie, that someone had a purpose for putting a cop in a prison where his chances of dying were slightly higher than the chances of him living. Charlie told Ted the truth about a lot of things, most of which didn’t make sense to Ted because he kept getting stuck at how Charlie remained calm in all of this. He’d be angry. Hell, he did what they said he did and he was still angry, though mostly at himself. 

Charlie tried to teach him about Zen, and Ted tried to teach Charlie about The Wrath of Khan, and somewhere in the middle, Ted realized that Charlie trusted him. Even stranger was that Charlie trusted the system that put him in Pelican Bay in the first place. He kept telling Ted to wait, that everything would be okay. After a while, Ted started to believe it too.

Charlie was in solitary for six weeks after the guard died. When he came out that time, his face was unreadable, his eyes sunken deeper in his paper-white skull. Everyone gave Charlie a wide berth, the line broken for six feet on either side of him. This time the meal was spaghetti and Ted didn’t say anything to Charlie at all, just set a fruit cup on his tray and then dished up a scoop of limp noodles with congealed sauce. He could almost see the rumors start, whirling in everyone’s minds as Charlie moved on down the line for his green-hued garlic bread and half-sour milk, but not a single word was spoken. People had, if anything, hated and feared Charlie. Now they respected him, and feared him even more.

**

“How many men have you killed?”

“Three.”

Ted frowned and kept his eyes on the basketball game. The ball didn’t bounce right, someone having figured out that the balls were less dangerous when they weren’t fully inflated, so most of the game was passing and slamming into one another and driving the ball into the hoop as if it meant something. “I’d think as a cop the count would be higher.”

“I didn’t kill people when I was a cop. And I’m still a cop, but the people I killed I didn’t kill because I was a cop. Well, in one respect, it was because I was a cop. Not why I killed them. Why they wanted to kill me.”

“You didn’t kill people while you were patrolling.”

“I shot people. Not a lot, but a few. Some of them might have died.”

“How many?”

“Ten.”

“Ten?” Ted worked hard to keep his voice neutral. “That seems like a lot.”

“Bad guys, Ted.”

“I’m considered a bad guy, Charlie.”

“But you’re a nice bad guy.” Charlie smiled, impish and not at all humorous. “Besides, if they died in the course of an investigation, what I did, I did in the line of duty, and therefore didn’t kill them. So, three. Yes. Three.”

“Three.”

“Three.” 

Ted nodded and swallowed hard. “Do you think you’ll kill more?”

“I can’t see the future, Ted.”

“Except for the part where you’re going to get out of here.”

“Except for that. That I see. Clearly.” Charlie tilted his head back and looked up at the California sky, his hair on fire in the sunlight. “I don’t plan on killing any more, Ted. I don’t like killing people. It’s bad for the soul.”

“I believe that, Charlie.”

“Me too, Ted.” He grinned again and got off the ground, brushing dirt from his jumpsuit. Ted watched him for a moment before he got up himself, wondering if he’d be safer if he just joined in the game and left Charlie alone like everyone else.

**

Ted got out of prison. He’d been out for four days before he came back and sat on the opposite side of the glass and looked in at Charlie. Only one other person ever came to visit Charlie, and Ted imagined Charlie would much rather see Constance than him.

“Ted. You’re supposed to leave.”

“I did leave, Charlie.”

“You’re not supposed to come back.”

“I thought you might like a visitor.” He glanced around at the other people in the room, the wives and the children and the mothers and the lovers. Desperation hung in the air like bad cologne and cheap sex. 

“Ted.”

“I went and saw my parole officer. I have to have a place to live and a job, Charlie. I can’t even imagine that the McDonalds would hire me as a cashier right now.”

“Go see Constance, Ted.” Charlie nodded toward the door as if he expected Ted to leave then and take his advice. “She’ll help you out.”

“No, she wants to help you out, Charlie.”

“Helping you out is helping me out, Ted. Go see Constance.” Charlie looked at him for a long moment and sighed. “Please, Ted. For me.”

“Okay, Charlie.”

“I’m going to be very rich, Ted. I’m not McDonalds, but I want to hire you.”

“To do what?”

“Manage my money.”

“I can’t do that, Charlie.”

“You can. You should. I’d like you to.” Charlie smiled, his grin slightly maniacal and enough to make the guard move his hand to his gun. “You should manage my money. Money makes money, right, Ted? And you’re good at making money.”

“I was, yeah.”

“I need you to make my money make money, Ted.”

“I can do that. Sure.” Ted stood up, slightly unnerved. “How much money?”

“A lot of money, Ted.” 

“Okay.” He started to leave, more confused than he’d been when he realized he was driving back to Pelican Bay that morning. A sudden banging on the glass caught his attention and he turned back, moving over to where Charlie’s hand was on the glass. “What is it, Charlie?”

“I’m gonna need an orchard, Ted.”

“An orchard?”

“Can I get an orchard around here?”

“You’d be better off with an orange grove.”

Charlie thought for a moment then stood up, towering over the guard, over Ted. “Sure, that works. See, Ted? You’re already helping.”

**

Constance told him everything and Ted signed contracts. He found a house with a pool and a room over the garage. He found a car and built an investment portfolio with enough safeguards around it that no one could do to Charlie what Ted had done to so many people. He consolidated and incorporated and laid the groundwork that became a foundation the day Charlie Crews got released from jail.

He did all that for his employer. He found the orange grove for his friend.


End file.
